There’s a huge difference between Safety trying to do Ethics and an Ethicist doing safety!
Isn’t it bizarre that when Safety wants to learn about Ethics it asks an engineer, this is a classic example:
Or when it wants to know about culture it asks an engineer whose tag identity is ‘the Indiana Jones of safety’. Then writing a book on non-culture telling one not to talk about culture.
Then when Safety wants to know about learning it ensures it asks people with no expertise in Education and Learning (https://www.learningteamscommunity.com/learning-teams).
There’s a huge difference between Safety trying talk about learning and an expert in Learning talking about safety!
These three are just three examples of the mono-disciplinarity of Safety.
Unless Safety can contemplate a Transdisciplinary approach to something all one gets is more safety goop packaged and marketed as education in what it doesn’t know.
And the objective and outcome/purpose of what is presented is not about Ethics, Culture and Learning but rather the outcome/purpose is driven by the deontological ideology of safety.
This is why this naïve promotion of ‘do the right thing’ (natural law ethics) cons people in safety to thinking they are studying ethics. This is why the AIHS Chapter on Ethics is NOT about Ethics (https://safetyrisk.net/the-aihs-bok-and-ethics-check-your-gut/).
When one is indoctrinated in a mono-disciplinary way, one only seeks non-knowledge in something followed by useless safety post-nominals.
This so-called ‘Global Learning Summit’ in Ethics is not delivered by an Ethicist! (https://www.uab.edu/engineering/asem/people/faculty-directory/wyatt-bradbury). Indeed, the presenter might be a great safety guy, but has no expertise in Ethics.
If you actually want to know about ethics in safety then start by seeking out an education with people who actually are ethicists (https://ethics.org.au/). If you want to know about the spirituality of resilience or a theology of suffering don’t go to a safety science lab. One would have thought that such would be fairly obvious. Apparently not.
Unfortunately, in the world of Safety if you are seeking wisdom in discernment you won’t find it is Safety (https://www.humandymensions.com/product/real-risk/).
In a Transdisciplinary approach one seeks out expertise from people who actually have expertise in the discipline.
How strange is this industry that will seek out a qualified surgeon when it wants surgery but then turns to an engineer to learn about Ethics! How bizarre for a presentation with no expertise in ethics to state that ethics is ‘the fundamental canon of our profession’. No wonder Safety gets itself more deeply mired in mess in psychosocial ‘hazards’ with no expertise in any psycho-social discipline.
If you want to learn about Ethics in risk you can study it here in a comprehensive, practical and positive way (https://cllr.com.au/product/an-ethic-of-risk-workshop-unit-17-elearning/). Indeed, in this course you won’t hear any of this simplistic Kantian language of ‘do the right thing’ or ‘check your gut’. Our prisons are full of people who did the right thing and checked their gut.
My best advice for anyone in safety wanting to learn from a discipline outside of safety is to go to that discipline with expertise NOT a safety source. The same applies in reading. Don’t seek out an engineer writing about culture but an anthropologist who knows about culture.
Safety is NOT the source for anything other than safety discourse. This is why the wisdom and discernment in risk remains in short supply for an industry still in love with the word ‘professional’ but not knowing what it means.
Dr Rob Long
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Crista Vesel says
Hi Rob, ‘ethics’ is often in the Discourse of those with the power to decide. I agree that many who profess to teach this important topic are not qualified to do so – or even ethical about their own work or relationships.
With such a direct question about Wyatt’s ability to lead ethics, perhaps you should contact him directly to speak about it? It would be the ethical thing to do 🙂
Rob Long says
Thanks for your comment Crista.
Matt Thorne says
In the continuation of the dumbing down of Safety, do people not even read what this person’s background is? But if they are going to a medical Doctor, they make sure his degree is up on the wall.
If you won’t let an amateur operate on your body, why not be as discerning as to what you put into your mind?
And you are probably right Rob, I reckon he is a great guy personally if you know him. And if you know him, you know he is not an Ethicist!
Rob Long says
The mind boggles at the contradiction and absurdities exhibited by this industry. It seems as long as someone has a safety qualification and experience they can do and teach anything. Safety is the only industry on the globe when picking players for a football team would go to a chess club looking for candidates.